A (3:10)

Sam, where's the lie? Show me, show me the lie in any of that.

B (3:19)

It's not so much a lie. Okay. It's not, I'm not saying she's lying, but there is something like, it's almost like circular logic that I'm having trouble following. Right. She's like, well, if I could be replaced by, you know, neocon pharma shill. It's like, yeah, you can be replaced if you resign. Like, you should stay in office. If, if you feel like that might happen, then stay in office and fight it out.

A (3:42)

No, this is, look, I honestly, not a bit. This is not a bit. I find her logic.

B (3:50)

I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that.

A (3:52)

She, she looks at the world and she says, okay, so I'm going to have to run a primary in my district, which I'll probably win because, like, Georgia is the state that stayed with Brian Kemp. Right. Remember, like they, they, they like their conservatives there. And, and then I'll win this thing after having, you know, eight digits of money dropped on my head on TV.

B (4:23)

By the MAGA packs.

A (4:24)

By the MAGA packs. And I'll go back to Washington with the Republicans now being in the hole by like 35 seats.

B (4:33)

Yeah.

A (4:34)

And my job will be to defend Donald Trump for two years.

B (4:40)

Yeah, that's true. All that's very true.

A (4:43)

And like, I am sorry, but what, what this, it's a House seat. They, they make those things, you know, they give those things away, basically. There's so many of them. Except for New York 12. New York 12 is like literally anyone.

B (4:56)

Who wants, Has a pulse is running in New York.

A (4:58)

But yeah, but honestly, I like, I just. This is a, this is the kind of logic that you would have thought that so many Republicans from the pre Trump days would have followed. Right. They would have said, I'm sorry, you want me to beat a MAGA challenger and then go back to Washington and just get on my knees and spend all of my time defending the indefensible for this guy who hates me anyway. Well, there's another path. Very few of them did it. They were just like, sure, sure, I'll do that. Just let me keep my seat. Gotta have a seat. I want to wear my pen, want to wear my lapel pin. Please.

B (5:38)

Yeah, but jbl, there's an alternate path, right? She could, let's say in theory, she takes the step of running again, getting eight figures poured on her and surviving the other. It doesn't mean she has to go and become Trump's defender in the House minority. She could actually do what she's doing now. She could speak out against them when she feels like she needs to. And she could just gradually go towards a more independent, you know, right wing nationalist type, I guess, but populist posture.

A (6:07)

What are you going to do?

B (6:08)

Problem is you're powerless and you're. Yeah, that's the problem in the House.

A (6:12)

There's nothing, there's nothing to be done. And the whole focus of the, you know, 26 to 28 will be accountability for Trump and whatever that means, hearings. And, and if you're a Republican in the House, your job is going to be to sit around and defend him. And look, in a perfect world, I'd say just switch parties. Marjorie. Yeah, right. You know, but of course, but she's not a Democrat. And this is the thing, you know, where Democrats are like, oh, or, you know, are we, we can't be a big enough tent to bring her in. She's not asking to be brought in. She doesn't agree with you guys about hardly anything. It's just that she believes all the stuff she has said about like the elites and corruption and all that stuff. And like, she really believes all the stuff about abuse of, of girls. And that has led her to be like, peace out.

B (7:02)

So why do you know, why do it now, though? That's the question. Right. Like we have a. Eight months at least. Maybe more. Way more. Ten months till we get the elections. Like, there's no reason to do it right now. What's your theory?

A (7:14)

Friday before. Thanks. I mean, honestly, it's so, I just, this just feels. And so it does not appear as though anybody in Republican got a heads up on this.

B (7:24)

Very much so, yeah.

A (7:26)

This is what I have said the whole time when people are like, oh, but don't you think she's laying the ground for somebody? And I'm like, I am sorry. I have now been a fairly close Marjorie Taylor Greene watcher. And this is not a woman who is plotting her moves out 12 deep. Right. Like, right. Just she sees things in the world and she says stuff and she does it. And like she starts doing CrossFit and she likes CrossFit so much, she opens a CrossFit gym. Right? Like, this is, this is just who she is.

B (7:56)

This has that vibes. This has the vibes of someone who had like, you know, maybe she had a nice glass of chardonnay tonight. She's eating dinner with her husband or boyfriend, Brian. She's like, you know what? I just don't like this. Get the camera rolling. Let's tape. It's like, that's that.

A (8:10)

And you know, honestly, it's so. It is refreshing to see a Republican who doesn't view a congressional seat as the most important thing in their lives, because that's what we have seen. So much like the Pete Myers of the worlds and the right. All of these guys.

B (8:28)

You should probably. You should probably probably recap for the audience. What Pete Myers journey was here.

A (8:33)

What was Pete Myers journey? So he's a freshman elected to Congress. His Michigan thing to do from Michigan. His first thing to do was to. Ah, look at that son of a junior. It's the third man.

B (8:47)

There he is. There he is, bursting in like the koolaid.

A (8:50)

We'll get back to Pete Mayer later. Andrew Egger, what do you think?

B (8:57)

He had to run home to get on this because he was so amped.

D (9:00)

I am amped, but I don't know. I'm a little. I'm paralyzed because I don't know what you would have already done.

A (9:04)

Oh, oh, you know what? That makes it even hotter. You just start talking. You have no idea what our, what our line is on this.

D (9:12)

Okay, can we talk about the human element real quick? Maybe you've already done this. Just the, like, just how like insane it is to watch an elected Republican just sort of talk openly about what it's like to have Donald Trump try to put them down like you.

B (9:28)

Same. Same camp here. Very human video.

D (9:31)

Yeah, I just mean like, like, like, she's absolutely right. Right. I mean, she's like, I fought like hell for this guy for, for years and years. And I took a couple stances that were more to his base than he is, and now he's trying to crush me over that. And he's going to dump tens of millions of dollars into. Into my district. I'm going to have to like, fight that. Spend the next year and then. And this was my favorite thing about her video. Maybe I did this to like, and then Democrats are going to retake the House and I'm going to have to spend the next two years still getting none of the stuff done that I want to get done and instead just having to be his big cheerleader against the impeachment efforts. Like, of course I'm not going to do that, like, that was her. That's her stated, understandable, sane rationale for not.

A (10:12)

She doesn't value holding a seat in Congress as the single most important thing in her life and a thing that is worth disfiguring her soul for. And if only more Republicans viewed public service in that way.

B (10:28)

Okay, okay, hold on, Andrew. Why now, though? Why do it now?

D (10:33)

Well, she's going to run president, right? I mean, doesn't that seem obvious? Isn't that the obvious ending of the video? Like when. When the American people are ready to join me in this fight? You know, she's making the play. It actually kind of hurts her to have to. To have to be the Trump defender, like, to. To kind of meekly go, yeah, but.

B (10:50)

She could do this at any point between now and the midterms.

D (10:53)

No, but, but, but, but Trump has forced this moment on her by, By. By doing this now. And she has to make a choice. She has to grovel, she has to kiss the ring, but. Or she has to do this weird dance where, like, she. She does, like, the Brian Kemp thing and she doesn't declare war on him, but she beats him and then tries to, like, maintain this uneasy truce, but actually, then would actually have to go right back to defending him. And she's saying, not like, like she's taking the humans.

B (11:17)

Why does she have to go back. But why does she have to go back to defending him?

D (11:20)

Well, that would be her job. Her job as a Republican in Congress under a Democratic.

B (11:24)

She's currently Republic. She's currently Republican in Congress, and she's.

D (11:27)

Currently not defending him, but under a Democratic House. That would be the agenda. That's her point in the video. The agenda under a Democratic House is impeach Donald Trump.

A (11:34)

And so, like, a Republican caucus agenda will be defend.

B (11:39)

Defend Donald Trump.

A (11:40)

Yeah, Right. And so what is she. What else would she do? Because you can't move agenda items. Right? You can't.

B (11:46)

Let me put this. Let me put this. Tim Miller tweet to you guys. First jvl, then Andrew. Tim, our dear colleague, writes the streak of Republicans challenging Trump and then quitting continues apace. I thought MTG would be different. Sad exclamation point.

A (12:00)

I mean, just a hard disagree. Just a hard disagree. She's a. She's a straight shooter with upper management written all over her. I mean, I just, again, I look at what she's done and I see what Andrew's saying. Like, maybe, maybe you're looking like, oh, maybe she wants to start a third party. Right? I. I do not I mean, also, I'm sorry, just watch her video. She is not a raw political talent who gets elected president or like, she is much more like a normal person. Taught. Right. Like, that does not. She does not look like Zorin Mumdani or, or our buddy Cam. Right? Cam's fantastic. First ad or so many. Like, you know, she's a woman who's like, yeah, you know, I get my phone, set it up, going to sit down on the sofa and just tell people that I'm not doing this. And, and that's great. And I honestly, two years is such a long time in Marjorie Taylor Green's life. She could decide that she's going to, like, start a cooking show between now and then. Like, I mean, I honestly believe that, like, you know, she's going to. She's going to find something else interesting in her life. And she's a woman of great enthusiasms. Maybe she really into woodworking.

B (13:16)

I would watch a cooking show, start building.

A (13:19)

Building Craftsman furniture.

B (13:22)

I watch her cooking show.

D (13:23)

Andrew, she's going to run for president as a Republican. I think that. I think that there's a pretty. I mean, it's not the only way you can read this video because it is all subtext, but I think there is a very, like, faithful reading of what she's doing right now that basically says Donald Trump is failing the MAGA movement that has been built up around him. He is jettisoning critics who are more faithful to that MAGA spirit than he is because of his own just sort of personal hangups and his inability to be crossed. And I consider it my goal as a public figure to advance that agenda. I'm not able to advance that agenda in Congress right now. I don't think I'm going to be able to advance that agenda next Congress either with Donald Trump as president. And I think that that one possibility is that she's just saying fuck it all and walking away. But the other very obvious possibility is that she thinks she is this a more plausible receptacle for. For what Maga is than J.D. vance is. And I think, I think, like, that's actually a really fascinating question because, like, what is MAGA like, if MAGA is this, like, primarily this weird, like, pseudo social, like, celebrity cult thing that this, like, plurality of the Republic Party, this feeling they all have toward Donald Trump where it's like hammer high water, then J.D. vance is like the. The inheritor of that, right? He is the guy who has, like, put his own soul under the knife more extensively than anybody else. Say that Again, Yeah, sure, sure. Although Junior has not, like, gone through the ritual.

B (14:58)

No, no, come on, guys.

A (15:00)

It's. Because it's not.

B (15:00)

It has nothing to do with real. I mean, some of its ideology, but it's really personality, right? It's like Don Jr. Is the closest by name to Trump. I mean, Donald Trump was in the Oval Office today praising Zoram Hamdani. Like, what are we talking about here?

D (15:14)

But, like, there's not. There's not like, a screw line. If I. If that's not the main thing of maga, if the main thing of MAGA is actually just this sort of, like, broader seething iconoclasm and desire to see elites brought low and, like, this particular policy agenda, really, really isolationist foreign policy stuff like that, then, I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene is. Is moving pretty aggressively to corner that market as, like, the most sort of, like, plausible, like, like, figurehead for that. So I. I don't know. I would not. This. This makes me more likely. More. More a higher expectation rather than a lower expectation that she actually.

A (15:47)

I don't know. Interesting ambition. You know, Andrew, you're. This feels like that scene in the Dark Knight where the Joker goes to Harvey Dent and Harvey's like, you know, you planned it this way. Joker looks at me, goes, do I look like a guy who makes plans? Does Marjorie Taylor Greene strike you as a woman who makes a lot of plans? Well, can I.

B (16:10)

The Joker had made plans, though. That's the thing, right? The Joker had planned it.

D (16:13)

Yeah. And that's. I mean, like, Margaret Taylor Green has done both sides of it. I mean, she came into Congress, like, just, like, flailing around and, like, very quickly found herself, like, kicked off all her committees and all of those sorts of things. And then she kind of, like, reinvented herself in this very strange way. I mean, in almost like a weird funhouse mirror version of what Alexandria Ocasio Cortez did on the other side, where she made herself an indispensable ally of Kevin McCarthy and, like, you know, got. Got a lot, like, actually started acquiring institutional power for herself in a way that actually does kind of suggest that she was very serious about, like, getting some of these bills passed. Right. And that's what she talked about in the video. She's like, my bills are gathering dust. Mike Johnson won't have a vote on them. Donald Trump is, you know, kicking me. I mean, it's like, very much not like, I'm taking my ball and going home. It's very much like a. I am going home. To think about how to like change this. You know what I mean? I could be completely wrong about this, obviously.

A (17:06)

Like, I, again, I look at the Kevin McCarthy thing as Kevin McCarthy was another institution to which Marjorie Taylor Greene thought she was supposed to give her devotion to. And he felt just like the Catholic Church, just like, you know, marriage and family life. And it turns out it wasn't. But she, she was with Kevin because she's like, hey, I got to Congress and now we have the majority. And well, he's the leader and I, you know, he's, he's nice. You should support the leader. That's how you get things done. Right. And that's why she became his gal. And it turned out not to work out. But, you know, I, anyway, that I don't think there was a lot like aoc. I think made a very clear. I'm gonna, I'm gonna become a serious lawmaker. I don't want to be a backbencher. I don't think Marjorie Taylor Greene did that. Maybe I'm wrong. No, this could be. No, I think this could be an incorrect read.

B (18:03)

No, I think that's what I read. The other thing I would just say, and this is like in the weeds governance stuff, but like, it's just a biting indictment of the House of Representatives. Right. Like nothing's getting done there. It's just, I mean, this whole past week has been an example of that where there's just dueling censures. Like, you know, Mike Johnson's out of control. He can't, you know, stop the Epstein files from happening. And, you know, different lawmakers are trying to do different discharge petitions. There's just no institutional prerogative or self respect.

A (18:34)

That's. That is not true of the House as an institution because four shorts ago, when the Democrats had a similarly tiny majority, Right. Nancy Pelosi was able to move a whole mess of legislation.

B (18:53)

That's true. That's true. It's true of this House.

A (18:55)

This House.

B (18:57)

Yeah.

A (18:57)

This party and this leader are a joke.

D (19:02)

Yeah.

A (19:02)

But it is not even Paulie Ryan institutional thing. Right. And it's not because their margins are so thin. Again, the Pelosi House with Democrats for the first two years, the Biden administration had almost the exact same margin. Right. And right. They.

B (19:15)

I guess that's true.

A (19:16)

Ass load of legislation.

B (19:18)

That's true. I would just. The only nuance I would add is that even in the Pelosi House, it was so. And we're getting really into each other, but it was so hierarchical and so leadership driven that Unless you're part of, like, a, you know, a committee chair or a member of leadership, you really don't have much to do. You could do messaging bills. You can, like, go on TV and rail, and that's what she did. But, like, you're not really doing anything in terms of legislation, even under Pelosi. You're just trying to, like, be a reliable vote and maybe get an amendment. And I, I just, I, you know, maybe that. I don't think this is what compelled her, but it certainly didn't keep her there. Right. Like, I think if there were other opportunities or more power for individual lawmakers, maybe she has a different perspective, but that.

D (20:02)

That was her main gripe as far as Mike Johnson was concerned in that video. There were the two things. There were the fact that he kept the House out of session for eight weeks just to dodge the various, which is crazy. But the other thing was that she has all these bills, and. And she thought they ought to be able to see the light of day in a Republican Congress. And they did. She said they sat there gathering dust, those. And like, you know, it. It does seem just from that. I mean, she. She had. She did introduce all this legislation. Right. And. And she felt like it. It deserved a hearing. Some of it was insane. You know, like, is there.

B (20:32)

Is there a parallel here to her career that I'm, like, missing? I mean, it's like, anyone like this in our political life before. I can't even think of a similar figure to this.

A (20:44)

Somebody said Sarah Palin. I don't think that's quite right.

B (20:48)

No, that doesn't seem right. I mean, I guess there's. I guess they're as close as anyone could be. But, like, no, I think it's also the compressed timeframe of it, too. It's like it went in the course of half a year from being, like, copacetic and fine to, like, not great, to, like, combustible to I'm leaving. And that was just like, it just really happened super fast.

D (21:11)

There's a weird sense in which it's like, what happened to Paul Ryan after he was elected Speaker? He was like, hey, this is great. Like, I'm the speaker. I have all these ideas. I mean, the difference is he actually got to pass all of them. He passed, like, Pelosi. During Trump's first term, Paul Ryan passed a billion of his own policy ideas through the House, and then they all just died in the Senate. But then he, I guess, sort of gradually came to the realization that even though Trump was letting him do all of that in the House. There was no future for any of that stuff. His vision of the Republican Party was going to kind of die with him. And he. He pieced out, which is different. That part is different because Marjorie Taylor Green's version is still. Still on the rise.

A (21:52)

I don't want people to think that I am a total in the tank for Marjorie Taylor Green. So I do have one very, very real criticism.

B (22:00)

Go ahead.

A (22:03)

Only monsters put up their Christmas tree before Thanksgiving.

D (22:06)

Yes.

B (22:06)

Oh, my God.

D (22:07)

Thank you.

A (22:08)

When I saw the Christmas tree in the back, I thought, oh, come on. Nope.

D (22:13)

No.

A (22:13)

Don't you do that. This is like the people who start putting up, like, Halloween decorations in mid August. You know, that's ridiculous. I don't like it. Sam, you don't understand your people.

B (22:25)

Well, because I'm Jewish. Yeah.

D (22:27)

I had exactly the same thought.

B (22:29)

Jbl, hold on. One. One other thing, just so you guys can. Can. I'm kind of curious what you think about this. I'm on Poly Market, because that's what I do. They have a question. Will Trump praise Marjorie Taylor Greene by December 31st? Do you think that percentage has gone up or down following this?

A (22:47)

Tell me what it was that's gonna give it away.

B (22:51)

All right. It was 20%. Yes. He will praise her by December 31st.

A (22:57)

I mean, honestly, I. I couldn't guess. That strikes me as an absolutely random proposition.

B (23:04)

Sure.

A (23:04)

And I don't. I also don't know that's a bad bet because, like, how does that get structured? What counts as praise?

D (23:11)

Yeah.

A (23:11)

What's kind of way. Like, that's.

B (23:14)

You're right. Don't worry about the bet. Well, I'll tell you what. The markets think it's now up to 55%. Yes. People are interpreting this as she's getting out of the way of Donald. He's gonna reach out to her and say, she has had a great career. Thank you for your service. I'm not so sure about that.

A (23:29)

I could see that.

D (23:31)

She burned the bridge pretty hard.

A (23:34)

So did Elon. Elon said he was a pedophile. And three weeks later, they were like, yeah, it's all cool, right? I mean, this is. Donald Trump said he was going to send troops into New York to stop Zorin Mumdani from turning into a socialist hell hole. And then today they're, like, blowing it up. And J.D. vance is, like, on the side, like, oh, oh, what'd you think of that?

B (24:00)

But I haven't gotten your take on that. Jbl. I talked to Sarah about it, but did you See it? Did you watch it?

A (24:05)

Yeah. So I haven't seen. I've only read about it. I want to hear you guys tell me real quick. Give me. Give me your quick, quick takeaways.

B (24:10)

Oh, man. I mean, it was the. It was like, truly. I mean, everything with Trump is a little surreal, but this one was, like, comically surreal. At one point. They were like, a reporter was like, Mr. Mamdani, you called him a fascist. Do you stand by? And you could tell Zoran's really struggling to figure out what. How to, like, spin this one. Like, how to it back to affordability. And Trump just looks at him and he's like, don't worry about it. You can stand by. And he gives him a little attaboy tap.

D (24:41)

My. My only read of it, and I have no idea. Like, the only thing that even halfway that I've been able to come up with that even halfway makes sense, is that they both kind of came into the meeting thinking that they were going to try to be like the magnanimous one and come out that way, and then neither of them ever dropped that, and then the meeting ended. Right. I mean, like, I don't know.

B (25:00)

Yeah, I think there could be or.

A (25:02)

Just possible that Mamdani decided to take the same approach to Trump that, like, foreign leaders do.

B (25:15)

I think that's exactly what he decided.

A (25:17)

I mean, but why not? Why? I mean, this is national. Democrats can't do that. But Zorin could. He's. He is a little bit like, he's not a traditional Democrat. He's very local to New York. He can say. And he was able to do it in a way that was not grotesque in, like, Gretchen Whitmer. Right. Because Gretchen Whitmer has tried to do this in the most pathetic way possible.

D (25:41)

Right.

A (25:41)

And Modani did it in a very Hollywood way. Right. And I don't know, maybe that'll work.

B (25:48)

I mean, this is why I told Sarah is that because she was sort of. She and I were a little bit of disagreement about whether it was the smart thing for him to do.

A (25:56)

For which mom, Donnie.

B (25:59)

For mom Danny. And my. My point to her was this man, this young mayor, has four or five months where he's got to make it work, because after that, it's just going to be hell. Every mayor's life is hell.

A (26:14)

Right.

B (26:14)

But you get a little grace period, and you don't want to spend it with the federal government saying, we're taking away trillions. And, oh, by the way, we're sending in the National Guard and canceling all These infrastructure projects, like, you just don't need that on your plate. So he bought himself six months, and that was worth it.

A (26:31)

You know. You know what they say, Sam?

B (26:33)

What?

A (26:34)

Only in New York, kid. Only in New York.

B (26:37)

I'm walking here.

D (26:38)

Nobody buys themselves six months with Trump, though. I mean, you get. I think you get. Until Trump decides.

A (26:45)

You know, until Trump decides over three or four. What if he. What if he sends Trump some gold cufflinks made of, like, subway tokens with a little grace note on it saying, yeah, Mr. President, I know we have many disagreements, but I really appreciated the way you. You welcomed me into your palace. And I just want you to know, next time you want to come up to New York, we'll put your face in one of the big Times Square things. Because, you know, it's. People should respect. I mean, it could literally be something as stupid as that. And, yeah, maybe Trump is all. I think.

B (27:23)

See, I think he should have. He could have renamed the. The. The subway stop at Jamaica the Donald Trump. Donald J. Trump subway stop at Jamaica. Queen or something like that. Would have loved that.

A (27:33)

Would Mr. Trump, would you like a subway stop named after you? We could do that, sir.

B (27:38)

Oh, Z. All right, I gotta run. I gotta go be a parent. This was fun. MTG guys retiring or announcing she's resigning tonight in a crazy, unexpected video we brought to you live here. Well, not live tapes, but subscribe to the feed. JVL Andrew. Thank you guys, both. Appreciate it.